The Niggard (1914)

• 64%
• 1914
• Drama
• Donald Crisp
• Wallace Reid
• Cora Drew
• Billie West

Elmer Kent is a clerk in a large establishment, and earns fifteen dollars a week. He supports his sickly mother, and every cent of his salary is required to make both ends meet. The heaviest expense is the payments on the cottage which his father, before his death, partially paid for. Recently more money than usual has gone for necessities for his mother who has had an ill turn, and the real estate agent sends him word that payments overdue must be remitted the following day or the cottage will be seized. The next day is Saturday and pay day. Elmer hurries with the money to the agent's office only to learn he has gone to the beach. He follows, him but at the summer resort is waylaid by a fellow clerk. Wirt Hadley, who introduces him to two pretty girls. They have a good time, Hadley footing the bills until the girls begin to pass remarks about Elmer's being a "tightwad." Discouraged, irritated by their ridicule, and despairing of finding the agent, he treats everybody to a sumptuous meal at the café. There Carr, the agent, sees Elmer, forms his own opinion of the spendthrift, and when the young man applies on Monday for an extension, sternly refuses. Elmer and his mother are evicted. Meanwhile the girls enjoy life at the beach, where they are summering, all unconscious of the misfortunes their careless twitting of a sensitive youth have caused.